Hooke's Law
by Spidermonkey111
Summary: Post season 8. Story about memory, friendship and coming home. Mostly fluff, some angst, a few tears. Plot based loosely on Random Harvest.
1. Night

_Note: So this story is the longest thing I have ever written. ARGHH._

_The title is based on Robert Hooke. Why? Because Castiel is an anagram for Elastic. Robert Hooke has a law named after him in to do with elastics. He also first described this discovery as an anagram._

_The plot of this story is half post S8 fic and the rest of the plot is loosely based on Random Harvest (1942 movie which itself is based on a book by the same name). Don't watch it if you don't want spoilers._

_There is destiel and fluff and a bit of angst (temporary character death) and a teeny bit of castiel/OC._

_If there is grammar/spelling issues I apologize in advance.  
_

* * *

It was far more sudden and dramatic than the actual apocalypse. The angels fell like stars, burning across the sky. It was enchanting and mesmerising; beautiful and terrible all at once and Dean could do nothing to stop it. _Oh Cas, what have you done?_

All Sam could do was rest in his brother's arms because breathing hurt, everything _hurt,_ _nothing new really_. He was still reeling, shaky after pouring his heart out to Dean and Dean had caught him. Everything else seemed so far away and yet he still wondered what was happening on the edge of his thoughts. Dean yelled out something to do with angels falling but the sound was lost in the wind and the smell of burning wings.

_Dean had caught him._

In another field all Castiel could do was watch while the breeze rushed through his hair and right through his coat. His heart ached for everyone, all his brothers and sisters and what he had done to them. It was all his fault. _Not again!_ He was helpless; he could do nothing. There was nothing he could do but watch.

_What was the point if he couldn't do anything right?_

The world was pressing down on him, and he could feel every breath and his chest felt tight and his head ached in a very human way. He felt so very close to breaking and yet more alive than ever.

All Dean could do was to take everyone home. That was his job and it was the only thing left to do, to pick up the pieces and they would sort out the mess later. He drove back to the bunker with Sam and Crowley's bodies slumped in the back. He staggered inside, supporting Sam and put him to bed and told him to sleep. Crowley was in no state to be hurting anyone but Dean put him in a devils trap in the dungeon with a cup of coffee anyway.

Then it was just Dean, sitting on the same chair he had sat on that morning. Everything inside looked so familiar and it taunted him with its sameness, the way things stayed the same, how home didn't change when the world had gone awry yet again. It seemed cold and heartless now, like an empty cave with echoes of things that had happened yesterday, had happened _before_.

Much later that night there was a hesitant knock at the door. It made Dean jump. _Who knew they were here? _He picked his gun off the table where he had left it and walked carefully to the door. The person knocked again, slightly louder this time. It was way too polite to be a monster so he opened the door. It was Cas. He was slumped against the door frame and he looked dishevelled and tired.

"Cas what happened?" There was accusation in his tone but only confused concern in his eyes.

"The angels they are all falling. Metatron did the spell but I suppose it's my fault really," Castiel said in a dead flat voice without looking up.

"You weren't to know, how were you supposed to trust Naomi after what she did?"

_You could of trusted me though, why didn't you listen to me, why don't you do what I say?_

Castiel glanced at Dean and then looked away again and said nothing. He was too ashamed to hold his eye and it was too hard to say everything that needed to be said.

Dean let him in, it was too late and he was too tired. All the emotion of the last few weeks had emptied him out and now he just felt nothing, like everything was drained away. He couldn't be angry or sad or annoyed anymore.

"Come inside and tell me."

He led Cas onto the couch in front of the TV and put the kettle on. That he could do, the little things, the things that were easy to manage. He just let all his problems roll off his back and onto the ground. He tried to think of what to say to Cas, to ease the tension. He wanted to yell at him, to be angry, but he had lost all the care that you need to be angry and instead he just brought him some tea, sat next to him on the couch and listened.

Cas quietly told him then, while sitting still, looking smaller and more perched and hunched than ever. Like he was bracing himself against the whole world and trying to hide from it.

"Dean, he took my grace for the spell." Castiel said flatly. Now that he had said it the idea really started to sink in. He could still feel the sensation of the knife against his throat and he lifted his hand to neck and remembered having that part of himself cut away. He breathed out self consciously.

Dean looked at him with wide green eyes and it hit him as well after a moment, his angel was human, _totally_ human. Not just cut off from heaven this time.

Cas rubbed his hands on his face, pressing his eyes, as if in the darkness he would be able to block away the guilt and the pain. Maybe to make it all go away.

Dean wrapped his arm around him and just sat because he couldn't think of anything else to do. The old angel was warm and he just sat, shrinking inside himself, lost in his thoughts. Exhaustion took them both over eventually and they fell asleep with Dean leaving his arm around Cas and Cas resting his head on Dean's shoulder.


	2. Muddling

The first day for Castiel crawled by. Every minute was tense and he tried to stay out of Dean's way. Dean, who always kept his head when there was a crisis. It was Dean who convinced Kevin to stay until they found out what was going on. It was Dean who made sure Kevin didn't get his hands on Crowley. It was Dean who fussed over Sam like a mother hen.

Cas tried not to get his attention and to be as little trouble as possible. He slept in a room that Dean had set up for him, he ate and drank and slept and did all those incredibly human things that he had forgotten about but were now enough to distract him. It distracted him from the world outside and for those first few days it worked and there was just life in the bat cave.

They heard reports of people who had appeared, with lost memories after the strange meteor shower.

_The angels. _

Dean realised there was one in a nearby town and planned to go and see it. Sam offered to go with him but there was no way Dean was going to let him. Castiel noticed that this time Sam didn't put up much of a fight. Cas opened his mouth to offer to come instead but Dean interrupted him.

"No Cas, what if the angels know you were involved? You won't stay alive for more than ten seconds," said Dean, "You stay here and don't go anywhere."

Dean sounded as if he expected him to leave anyway and was trying very hard to sound like he didn't care. Cas wanted to say "where else would I go?" but he didn't. So Dean left with an angel blade to find out how bad things were.

Dean only took the afternoon and came back in looking weary.

"Where's Sam," he asked Cas who was waiting, reading through some of the older books from the shelves.

"I'll go get him," and Cas went to Sam's room to wake him up. He didn't want Dean to see Sam like this. Tired and pale and dozing almost all the time. He was pretty sure Dean knew, but no one had said anything and Cas knew the Winchesters well enough by then to not say anything.

"Dean's back," he said quietly and Sam stirred from his stupor and got out of bed, unsteadily at first but he soon got his bearings.

When they got back, Kevin has also made his way to the main room of the bunker and there was an awkward silence between him and Dean. Kevin still wanted to leave but Cas was pretty sure there wouldn't be an end to needing the tablet translated just yet.

_There never was an end to all of this. _

Dean barely gave Cas a glance and spared his concern for Sam.

_As he should._

Dean had asked for no more explanation or laid any blame on Cas since the night they came back to the bunker.

_The other unspoken thing. _

So Cas just stood still, rubbing his first finger up and down his thumb like a nervous twitch as Dean told them about the angel.

"Well I met one of the angels. Said his name was Daniel?" He made it a question and Castiel nodded. "They do remember they are angels, I think that the whole 'amnesia' thing was just a cover. He has no idea what really happened so I told him about Metatron (but not you of course Cas)." Dean was watching Cas while he spoke but Cas still couldn't meet his eye.

"They haven't got any powers so they are mainly worried at the moment about demons and all the other monsters they have pissed off over the years. This one had no idea about how to get back to heaven so Kevin unless that angel tablet says something useful then I guess they're stuck here."

Kevin shot Dean an angry look, "Dean I am not spending anymore time locked in a room, I was half mad before and _I am not doing it again_!"

"Kevin, this is important..."

"Don't start that again! I've heard enough!"

Sam interrupted, and said with a weary turn of his head, "give him a break Dean. With the angels disbanded I am sure we could find him a flat somewhere and send him back to college or something if he wants. He can keep in touch with us about the tablet." And he turned to Kevin, "but no rush."

Kevin agreed and so he left. They sent Crowley away on the same day once they determined he really was harmless. They got him a job at a sandwich bar and told him to be good and that they would be keeping an eye on him.

_It was strange_, Castiel thought, _how one day could change everything so much._

It was after that the days started merging together for Castiel. When he had been an angel he could remember everything. Of course he wasn't thinking about it all of the time but his memories didn't blur and merge together like they did now.

_Apart from the bits that Naomi wiped away. How many more things to be ashamed of? How much more evil have I done? _

The worst thing was that although the vividness of the specifics was replaced with vague recollections, emotions seemed to be burnt across his mind. The guilt was weighing him down more with time rather than less.

There was also tension building in the bunker. Dean seemed to be waiting. Cas thought he was waiting for Sam to get better, so that his life could go back to what it was. It had soon become clear that he wasn't going to, that whatever the trials had done to him was permanent.

Then one morning Cas was eating breakfast, cereal, and Dean looked at him.

"Cas, you need to get out of those clothes. You finish that and I'll dig something out."

Castiel was about to open his mouth to protest.

"No buts. Firstly it will be summer soon and you can't walk around in a suit and a trench coat all year round, second, they need a wash and thirdly, you need a shower."

Dean found him a shirt and some jeans. They were slightly too large and they smelt like Dean, different and yet familiar. It felt strange to have different fabric lying against his skin, to have so many less layers, to see different colours out of the corners of his eyes.


	3. The Sound of Music

For Castiel it was like being in a prison. He was free to come and go as he liked, as free as he had ever been. He was less trapped than when he had been enslaved by Naomi. Yet he felt like he imagined a human must feel when left without technology. All the things he was used to doing, used to being _able_ to do were gone. His thought patterns pulled him back to his old habits and they reminded him continually of what he had lost. He couldn't fly, he was limited by things that had never restricted him before like geography and biology. He was trapped in his vessel, and the more he struggled in his head, the more he tried to fight free the more he realised there was way to go back. His prison cell didn't have a door.

One day Castiel found a violin in a store room in the bunker. It was old and dusty, but still worked. There was a pile of sheet music on browning pages next to it. He picked up the pages and glanced over the notes as they danced across the staves. Unlike so many other things the pages of music made sense to him, it was logical and mathematical.

He showed it to Dean and asked if he knew how to play.

"I don't have any idea Cas. Look it up or something."

So he used the computer to find out how to play the notes, and which notes corresponded to the symbols on the pages. So he practised, tried again and again to play the music so it would sound like it was written.

Dean disliked it at first.

"Cas stop playing in here. It sounds like someone is strangling a cat," and Dean turned up a Led Zeppelin record until he couldn't hear it anymore. Sam rolled his eyes at him.

"Dean he is getting better, you should let him practice."

"I don't have to listen though. Play somewhere else."

So Cas played it in his room instead.

Dean felt bad afterwards; he had been trying not to snap at Cas or show his frustration.

_Don't expect too much from him. Don't blame him. It was hard for him too._

But Dean was all tied up in knots inside.

Sometime later when he walked past Castiel's room and he heard the music coming from inside. He stopped to listen and he could see him playing through the half open door. The tune sounded familiar but he didn't know the name. Castiel looked concentrated, his eyes showed the intensity he threw into everything he did and the sound was dramatic and beautiful and it made Dean's heart ache and he didn't know why.

"That was Vivaldi," Cas would tell him later. He played others as well like Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and Boccherini.


	4. Teach Me

The first change in the strange little routine at the bunker was Dean asking Castiel to go hunting with him.

"Hey Cas, you said you wanted to be a hunter. I'm sick of sitting around here. It isn't helping anybody so let's kick some demon ass before Abaddon gets going in hell and starts some stupid plot to destroy the world."

Dean wanted to teach him things. Instead of trusting him less, Dean was trusting him more. They did salt and burns, exorcised demons, saved people and _hunted things_.

Castiel suspected that he knew the reason behind it and that was that Dean couldn't bear to watch Sam fade away each day while he tried to kid himself he was getting better. Sam himself had settled into the lifestyle of an old man, with his ongoing chronic fatigue like illness where some days he didn't even wake up. Without much discussion Sam had taken up the role at home base, mainly doing research and answering the phone.

Castiel felt a little like he was impinging on the space that Sam used to occupy.

Dean even taught him to drive in the Impala.

"You might need to drive one day if I get hurt or something. If you are going to be my backup you need to know how. Although if you hurt her you're dead. Comprende?"

Cas found it much harder than he had thought it would be, trying to coordinate the clutch and the accelerate and to remember to indicate. He knew in theory what he had to do but his body wouldn't cooperate, it couldn't seem to manage doing things at the same time. Yet when he did get "the hang of it," as Dean put it, it became automatic and he didn't have to think about it at all, his legs, his hands, they did it all by themselves.

One thing Dean didn't teach him though was how to knot his tie. Cas had asked him once if he would when Dean straightened it again for the 5th time in a row while they were under cover as FBI officers.

"Sure," he had said, "remind when we get back."

But Dean never seemed to get around to it and he always had a ready excuse, so Cas had stopped asking.

After hunting had become a regular thing Dean had said while sitting at home one evening, "It's about time you understand my jokes Cas."

So Dean started showing him all the iconic movies that he mentioned so often. They watched Star Wars and Star Trek, Ghostbusters and ET. They watched the long fantasy epics like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Then they moved on to some just for fun like Jaws, James Bond and Homeward Bound (because you couldn't watch movies without a least one with talking animals).

Cas found them bewildering at first but he slowly got used to the way people told stories and the way that people pretended. He even started to feel a little for the characters and to understand how people were able to live through the people on the screen. He laughed and cried and got swept up in the stories and he couldn't stop watching because he wanted to see what happened next. He still enjoyed them even after he started to recognise the patterns in the plots that were repeated over again and again.

Most of all however, he liked the happy endings, he liked how the characters found their way home, how they always defeated the insurmountable odds. It was hope wrapped up in a package of ridiculous good luck and it was as contagious as it was seductive.

He also learnt to play music by John Williams from some of the movies on the violin and Dean started to ask him to play more often.


	5. Angry

Castiel never forgot how fragile Sam was, not with that pale weary face and tired defeated eyes that slowly got more and more resigned.

Sometimes he forgot how fragile he was. Then he would be suddenly reminded like the day he sprained his ankle and he had limped for a _week_. If he got thrown around by a monster he ached for days.

Then there was the time a hunt went badly. Dean told Cas to wait somewhere and Cas went in anyway; he wanted to help. Dean was angry.

"You could have gotten yourself killed Cas! Trust me and don't jump into things you can't handle. You could have been hurt! God dam it, you can't just heal anymore Cas. You'll be laid up for days. _Listen to me!_"

"I'm sorry Dean." He could see the pained look in his eyes and there was nothing else to say and he knew it would provoke him. He had said it so many times. _Dean you should be angry at me. _

"You shouldn't trust me."

What Dean said next only surprised Castiel.

"No Cas, I should be sorry, there is no point getting angry at you."

Dean had long ago decided that getting angry wouldn't help. It had frustrated him at first that Cas was not an angel anymore, frustrated because Cas hadn't listened and yet again gone and done something stupid. He had realised that Cas was beating himself up about _everything_ and Dean could relate to self-hatred. The '_I might kill myself'_ still rattled in Dean's head. However something in Castiel's expression this time made Dean stop his usual careful reassurances.

"Why would you want me to be mad at you?"

Cas didn't know how to say it. He didn't want to say it. Dean was always so deliberately patient. It seemed that nothing would stop Dean coming back. So he was left with the relentless sound of his own Lucifer in his head narrating his life and it was screaming at him, trying to hurt him and maybe that would take away the pain, guilt and regret.

"Because I deserve it and because no one else is."

"Who else?"

"The angels. They should be, or they would be if they remembered who they were, if they remembered what I did to them! You trust me and I fail you time and time again. And Sam..." Cas stopped himself for a moment but Dean knew what he meant so continued, "and there is nothing I can do. You don't say anything and I think that just makes it worse."

Tears were filling his eyes and he stopped because his vision was blurring although he was still looking at Dean with the same fierce pent up power that he did as an angel. He couldn't help himself, couldn't keep control of this silly human body, it was like tumbling and falling and not being able to stop.

_Helpless, that's why people cry._

He hadn't wanted to admit it to Dean, because he knew that he would try and shoulder all of Cas's problems as well as his own. It was too late now though, his body was betraying him.

"Cas the whole thing was a mess, it wasn't just you. It was _Sam and I_ that failed to close the gates of hell, it was us that set Abaddon loose. Sam doing these trials was never your fault. It was mine and his and..." He pauses for a moment. "Fault isn't important."

"That still doesn't change what I have done. What I might do next time."

Dean reached out for once to fill the gaping hole between them and wrapped his arms around him. He hung on to him, wrapped him up in his arms and squeezed him tight as if he could wring out all the pain and suffering just by holding onto him. Cas softened and rested his head against Deans and for once he let Dean be strong for him and he held Dean back, grasping the back of his shirt.

Occasionally Castiel forgot how much stronger he was when he was with Dean.


	6. Marathon

Later Dean had suggested, "If you want to get stronger you should try going running or something. Get fit."

So Castiel started running miles and miles through the countryside, wanting his human body to become stronger so that he could be useful and not a burden. It also meant he could run away and get lost in the rhythm of his steps, one after the other. Sometimes it made him feel better. Other times it was _so _slow it just made him remember how much power he had lost and how he had lost it. Still, if he pushed himself further than he should, if he ran until his breath came in ragged gasps and his legs wobbled and he could barely hold himself up, then he could forget.

There was a tree on the side of the road which just stood by itself. It gave him somewhere to run _to_, a goal in the distance although what distance it was exactly he didn't know. Not like he used to _know._ When he reached it he would stand underneath and stay for a minute in the shade. Everything seemed still even though Castiel knew the world still turned. Just like he knew that water was flowing through the tree and into the air and that the green leaves were factories of chemical reactions. Yet while he stood, all that was just in his head and what he saw was ants crawling up the bark and he heard the rustle of the leaves while he was covered in their shadows. The moment would pass and he then turned and ran back the way he had come.


	7. Swim

The warm Kansas summer eventually set in and Dean drove them back home after a hunt. For once there was no music playing, just the hum of the engine and the whistle of wind through Dean's open window. He liked these long highway drives with the warm orange light that stretched lazily through the long evenings. Sam was sleeping, head lolling back, his hair half over his face, sunlight hitting the loose strands as they rose and fell in the air with the movement of the car. Cas was sitting quietly behind, dressed in a blue cotton shirt and knee length shorts, staring out the window watching the fields fly by with his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. He looked very human and normal, but still sitting perched. Dean looked up and met his eyes in the rear vision mirror and held his gaze for a moment and then remembered to look back at the road.

They drove past a sign for a lake. "How about going for a swim?" suggested Dean.

"If you like," said Cas.

"Well it's hot and we never did get around to getting the air-con up and running back home."

Dean was already turning the wheel and drove up a dusty track. The woodland opened out to a wide flat lake, it was quiet, no one there, just the sound of crickets and birds and nature. Sam lifted his head, having woken up after the car had stopped.

"Hmm?"

"Swim Sammy, 'cos it's too hot to go back yet."

Then they threw their shirts off and ran to dive in off the little jetty. Cool water at last, no more hunting, no more broken family. Sam and Dean were soon fighting and splashing, the only sign of anything out of the ordinary was that Dean that little bit more careful with him than _before_.

Cas still stood on the edge.

"Come on Cas, you'll cool off."

"I can't."

"What? Are you worried about getting your feathers wet? Of course you can!"

"I don't know how to swim, I haven't needed to before."

Dean smiled wickedly. "I'll just have to teach you."

Castiel let himself in gently as he felt the cool edge of the water move up his body. Dean explained to him how to float first, how to just lie on his back. Cas tried, yet the right balance eluded him and he found himself standing again.

"Relax, stop trying so hard, the water will hold you up."

"I'm familiar with the concept of buoyancy Dean."

Dean ignored his protests and Cas kept trying until he was floating, just drifting with the current. Castiel liked the sensation, it took just enough thought to keep him on the surface to distract him, like he was teetering on the edge of a cliff. The edge between the water and the sky. Dean just watched as the concentration left his face he just looked peaceful and thoughtful.

_Almost ethereal._

Then he lay back onto the water as well, just next to Cas.

Sam had swum back to the jetty and was sitting on the edge with his feet still in the water, silhouetted in the fading light. He could just see the two bodies floating out on the lake, drifting together like logs in the gently moving water.

The serenity was broken when Dean knocked Cas off his balance and laughed as the old angel struggled in the water spluttering "_Dean"_ as he fought to stay afloat and keep the water out of his lungs.


	8. The Key

Dean and Cas were walking from the Impala after a hunt and instead of going straight inside Dean pulled something out of the breast pocket of his jacket.

"I got this for you Cas, because I thought you might need it one day now you can't blip in and out anymore."

He opened his hand and he held out a key, same shape as the one to the bunker. Castiel shook his head, "How can you trust me with this?"

Dean pushed it into his hand, "Take it. I realised that you still don't understand otherwise I wouldn't have to keep telling you. I need _you_. I forgive you and I don't care. You can have this, it isn't conditional. This is so you remember to always get your arse back home when you are done."

Dean left the key in his hand. Cas just looked at him, taken aback and for once he didn't try and tell Dean he wasn't worth it, he just turned and used the key to open the door and Dean followed him inside.


	9. Fate and Destiny

Sam discovered reports that there were people going missing without a trace in a large city a couple of hours away. There were no connections between the victims, they were all from different demographics, had different jobs, knew different people. It sounded suspicious so Castiel and Dean headed off to check it out. Like normal they visited the local police force and found the names of the recent victims and the addresses of their families. There were about six on the list so Dean sent Cas off with a couple of the addresses. He thought maybe it was time he could start giving Cas some more responsibility.

"See how you go, meet back at the motel when you are done. Or call me."

Cas half smiled and looked pleased.

"Yes Dean."

The first family were sad, their dog jumped all over him but appeared fairly normal to Cas. Nothing sounded like anything supernatural.

The second was for an address in a poorer, darker region of town. He came to a door at the end of a street at the bottom of a block of flats. He knocked on the door, however no one answered_. _He tried the handle. It opened.

He walked inside cautiously, his shoes sound loud as he walked across the lino floor. It was dimly lit and the furniture was old and shabby and thick with dust. It smelt like rats and mould and cigarette smoke.

_Surely no one lives here?_

Then he heard steps from the hallway and someone walked into the room and stood in the shadows. He quickly and silently drew his angel blade and it shone silver in the dim light. The figure turned and looked at him and now he could see her face and her smile wasn't friendly.

"Castiel. I was waiting for you to come."

"Who are you?"

"Haha, don't look at the door my little angel. Mostly human now though aren't we." She looked at the sword in his hand. "That's not going to help you much now is it?"

She walked towards him, but before she got within range she threw him against the wall. He gasped and wriggled, but invisible bonds held him down.

"You just sit still. That's it. You want to know who I am? You and those damned Winchesters. It isn't fair. You keep stuffing things up and there is no one left to punish you. I won't kill you because for some reason _you always come back_. You get worse. You destroy people's lives in trying to help those silly boys. You never think about all the consequences. It was just fine, and you had to go and derail _everything._ Do you realise how much the world has changed because of you? People have died who shouldn't have, there are people who will never be born."

She was hissing in his face now, still not letting him speak.

"You are a train wreck Cas and I am going to make sure you get it right this time."

Cas felt relieved at first because this is what he had been bracing himself for all this time. It was true, he deserved to be punished, deserved her rage. Maybe it would help take away some of his guilt. Maybe... and then he remembered how vulnerable he was, trapped, with nothing he could do about it. Unless Dean came along and rescued him, but Dean was busy elsewhere and wouldn't suspect anything for hours yet.

"So Castiel, I am going to take a page out of Naomi's book. I am going to wipe your memory a bit, so that you don't know you are an angel, that you don't remember the Winchesters and you can start again and see if you can get it right and stop interfering. I won't let them find you either. Amazing what fate can do against even the most persistent hunters."

Castiel was still pinned against the wall and he began to feel his memories slipping away. His memories of heaven, of his power, of friends, of the things he cared about, leaving the knowledge but taking all of his experiences. As it was torn away that he realised how much he wanted and needed it, despite the pain. He tried vainly to hang on, and the more it slipped the more he wanted it. He didn't want to forget saving Dean, rebelling, rebelling again. He wanted to be able to go back, he wanted to keep it but as the seconds ticked over he couldn't even remember what 'it' was.

"Now we don't want you remembering again do we?" she said to herself and she slipped her hand into his pocket and took out his wallet and emptied a few bank notes out and shoved them back in his pocket. He looked at her with wide confused eyes.

"Good luck," she smirked.

Then those last few moments slipped away as well and he found himself wandering out onto the street and into the crowd, with a fading image of a strange gleeful women's face disappearing from his mind.


	10. A Note

Dean got worried after Cas didn't come back. He had turned up nothing and Cas wasn't answering his phone.

_How could he have stuffed this one up? _

Reluctantly he had headed out to check the addresses he had sent Cas too. At the first place they remembered seeing him earlier in the afternoon and there was nothing else out of the ordinary.

Then he headed over to the second. He was suspicious as soon as he saw the open door at the front. He pulled out his gun.

_Surely no one lives here, this is just empty. _

He turned into the first room, the one that Cas had wandered into only hours before. It was empty now and Dean started looking around. On the table there was an envelope with what looked like Castiel's wallet and fake ID.

_What sort of monster leaves a note?_

He opened the envelope and read the handwritten note inside:

_To the Winchesters,_

_Due to the continued good service you have given the universe and how easy you may have made my job I give you this gift:_

_1 missing amnesiac ex-angel._

_I'll be watching to make sure you don't find him. In the meantime please stop messing the world up._

_Best wishes for the future, especially you Sam,_

_Love from,_

_Lachesis_

Dean scrunched the note in his hand.

"Damn it Cas!" he growled to the empty room.

_Who the hell was Lachesis anyway?_

He flicked a hand into his pocket and took out his phone and called Sam.

"Sam?"

"What's the matter Dean?"

"Cas is in trouble. Again. Something left a note though. Called Lachesis?"

"A _note?_ That's a first._"_

"Yes."

"I'll just look it up..." Dean paced impatiently on the other end of the line. "Oh not so good Dean. It was fate, one of the three sisters. What did she do to Cas?"

Dean read Sam the note.

"He can't have been gone that long Sam, we need to find him."

"He could be anywhere Dean. Who knows where she sent him? She also said she would try to stop you remember?"

"Well we've lost him again then."

Sam could hear the frustration in his brother's voice.

"Just come back Dean, you can't do much more there."

"Yeah."

* * *

Dean went back to the bat cave. He didn't show much but Sam realised how much it would have hurt him. He had noticed that Dean handled Cas's coming and going worse every time. Something about Cas made Dean make allowances he otherwise had only ever made for Sam. Sam understood in a way and tried to stick up for Cas and smooth things over between them. This time though it was no one's fault and all he could was to promise to look for Cas. So he helped by checking out the hospitals, reports of people found, and at mental institutions under his description and all his old aliases.

Dean doesn't seem to expect to find much. He had just been used to having Cas around and now he was gone. What he should have expected anyway.

_Since when did anything nice happen to him_?

He called Charlie and she was happy to offer to help look for him by hacking into any records they couldn't get themselves into. She understood how important Cas was even though Dean was dismissive and acted unconcerned.

Dean didn't seem to notice that both of them totally ignored his indifferent attitude. If he did he didn't show it. He was less able to hide his concern as the days went past. All Dean really himself was that it _hurt_ and the feeling that something was missing followed him around wherever he went.

"How long do you think before he does something stupid or gets into trouble? He's human but he still doesn't act normal. And pretty much every demon would love to get their hands on him."

"Dean he is tough and smart. I am sure he can cope." Sam coughed as he reassured him.

"Sam I told him to go do those interviews, I should have stayed with him."

"Stop blaming yourself."

Dean looked up sharply. He heard the echo of what he had said before. To Sam and to Cas. This time it sank in a little.

"Let's just find him then. Why can't he catch a break Sam? And speaking of, why can't we? Just when you think it can't get worse, it does."

They tried spells, summoning, tracking, psychics and nothing worked. Even Charlie drew a blank. They called Kevin but nothing on the angel tablet was any help, as Cas wasn't an angel anymore.

It was as if Castiel had disappeared and floated away into nothing.

* * *

One day Dean was looking through some of the shelves and he suddenly walked out, down the corridor to Sam's room where Sam was resting. He looked up at Dean when he walked in.

"Sam he still has his key." Dean sounded hopeful and yet was unsure as to whether or not this helped anything.

"She mustn't of realised he had it on him. Isn't that why you gave it to him? So he could always come back."

Dean swallowed, looked away and said just before he walked off, "yeah, well I don't think it'll be much help though without an address."


	11. What the Cat Dragged In

Castiel had gotten stuck in the rain. He was wet and cold and shivering. He had nowhere to go and he had spent the last of the money in his pocket buying a warm pie from a shop. It was strange, he didn't remember who he was or where he was from, but he remembered something about pie. Something about it was familiar but like everything it seemed to be hidden away behind the fog in his head. He sat down under a tree on a bench in a park. The green grass and trees were almost a welcome change from the cold, hard, unsympathetic streets of this city. He simply sat until the rain made his hair flat and sleek and his clothes were soaked through.

People walked past but no one even glanced at him. No one, that was, until a little elderly lady with her umbrella with paw prints all over it stopped and faced him.

"Hello?"

"Hello," he replied.

"Surely that suit is too nice to wear out in the rain?" She had moved so that she was holding the umbrella over his head.

"Too nice?" he echoed. "Rain is such a powerful thing isn't it. We stand under the drops but over time it carves into rocks, and wears away the buildings and the streets. If we left this place, over time the elements would wear it down to nothing but dust. Nothing lasts."

She sat down next to him, getting her skirt wet on the bench while she still held the umbrella over them both.

"Sad I suppose, but everything is changing all the time isn't it. Things come and go. As long as they last long enough."

"Who is to say what is long enough?"

"As long as you need I suppose. By the way I'm Jenny Oliver."

She was looking at him and he understood she was waiting for a reply.

He sighed, "I don't know my name. I have been trying to remember but I just can't."

"Do you have anywhere to go?"

"No."

"Well then, why don't you come with me?"

She had a town house. It was on a quiet street and it was warm and dry. She didn't mind him dripping on the carpet. She let him have a shower and got him some clean clothes. He put on a shirt, some slacks and a woollen jumper and went and found his benefactor fussing about in the kitchen cooking.

"So no memory then? Like those people last year? What did the scientists think again, some sort of prion or something they thought. Something they couldn't detect properly."

"I don't know about then. I can remember today, just today wandering the street and before that? Nothing, just a blank."

"No name then?"

"No. You asked that already." Cas seemed to realise he had been rather abrupt, "You have been very kind, thank you."

"Ouch," she held a finger with her other hand after touching a hot pot without a mitt.

"Are you ok?"

"Yes, I'm fine, just being an idiot." She ran cold water from the tap over her finger.

"Would you like some help? I am sure I could manage to chop something," Cas offered.

She was already off on another tangent when she replied, "You could make one up. Something simple, John?, Steve?, Geoffry? Jimmy? What is the first thing that comes into your head?

Cas thought for a moment... a whisper perhaps? An instinct.

"James," he says, "not Jimmy, that feels like someone else. James...?"

"Well James, what about a surname? Maybe just pick one out of the phone book if you need ideas."

She pointed towards the phone and Cas walked over and picked it up. A cat walked into the room, a large brown tabby with big green eyes, and it rubbed against his legs purring softly. He patted it gently and opened the phone book to a random page.

"Well what's the first one on the page?" she prompted.

"Hooke."

"Sounds like Captain Hook to me," she replied.

"Captain Hook?"

"Yes, you know, from Peter Pan."

"I don't think I know that."

She laughs, "pity we can't get Tinker Bell to sprinkle you with fairy dust."

"Should I pick something else?"

"No, I like it."

Cas doesn't understand but doesn't ask her to explain.

"So there were no clues in your pockets then James?"

"No, but I do have this," and he pulled out the key on a string from around his neck.

She turned the tap off, dried her hands and walked over and had a look. "Wow look at that thing, looks like an antique but the metal is all new. I didn't even know they still made locks like that anymore."

Cas looked around at the sound of someone entering through the front door. A young woman in her twenties, with long brown hair and eyes, walked into the room.

"Oh hello," said Jenny and she looked at Cas. "James this is my daughter Sarah. Sarah this is Captain Hook."

Sarah smiled warmly and shook his hand.

"So where did you pick this one up from?" she asked her mother.

"I rescued him. Erosion was too slow for him, he was waiting for crocodiles and outlaws."

Cas was really puzzled now and Sarah laughed.

Jenny looked at the clock, "Sarah, I have some calls I have to make before business closes, can you look after the food and James?" Before her daughter could reply she was bustling out of the room.

Sarah smiled and sat down opposite him.

"So tell me, are you really called Captain Hook?

"No, I can't remember my name. I just picked it out of here." He pointed to the page in the phone book.

"Oh, it's Hooke with an 'e'. Like Hooke's law."

He wrinkled his forehead, "the force needed to deform a spring is dependant on distance?"

"Well done. I'm I teacher, high school science," she explained, "so you don't remember then? I can tell one thing about you, Capt'n, you sound like you know your stuff."

Cas smiled quietly at her. "You are all very kind."

"Don't you worry, I'm sure mother will give you a job. She likes you. She makes a lot of money and uses it to run charities. She calls the business Oliver and Company, she _specialises _in lost kittens. You're too smart to be on the street. I'm sure there will be something you can do."

"Thank you. I don't feel I have done anything to deserve it though."

She smiled again, with a bright open smile that lit up the room.

"You know you are incredibly cute when you look so lost and earnest like that."


	12. Not Ever

Dean had kept the trench coat and the tie despite Cas not having worn them for a couple of months and he put them in the Impala.

_Just in case._

He also took an angel feather that he placed in his jacket pocket. He still hoped Cas would find his way back somehow. Although over time he slowly gave up any hope of finding him again. He couldn't help himself doing a cursory search on the internet each morning but nothing ever came of it. He even went to pray one day, he remembered that Cas couldn't hear him now.

_Not that that always used to work anyway_.

In fact no one would hear him except maybe Metatron and he wasn't going to give that prick the satisfaction.

Without Cas, Dean had no way to hide from the problem staring him in the face every day. Ever since he had stopped Sam from doing the trials they had been searching for answers as to how to get Sam better. That search had been as unsuccessful as the one for Castiel. There was no spell to fix his problems; there was no demon left that was stupid enough left to do a deal with him. There was nothing left except the truth that was staring him in the face.

One day Sam sat on the couch, still shivering despite too many layers. He slipped in and out of consciousness and Dean could do nothing but watch.

_I can't get my heart broken again._

"Dean I'm scared." Sam's voice was soft and croaky.

"What of Sammy?" asked Dean, even though he knew the answer, he didn't want to say it.

"I'm not getting better."

_No you're getting worse._

"Sammy I'm trying. We have looked everywhere. I'm all out of ideas."

_I've failed yet again._

"I know Dean. It's not your fault."

Dean didn't try and argue and take the blame. He hugged his little brother who shouldn't have to die like this. He wasn't supposed to die like this.

"It's not fair."

"Life isn't fair. We know that."

The despondency in Sam's voice made tears well up in Dean's eyes and that was all it took for Sam to crumble, sobbing in his brother's arms.

* * *

After that Dean didn't leave anymore to go on hunts. Instead he stayed in and they played board games and watched movies. Dean cooked amazing meals, baked cake and drank beer. Dean had to stay strong because that was his job. To hold them all together. If he was going to fail in every way he was going to go down fighting.

Sam slowly got worse. He lost weight, he had no appetite. He spent most of his days sleeping and when he was up his eyes were unfocussed and he was so weak he could barely stand. Dean had to help him around the house, to walk to where he needed to go. Until the day he stopped leaving his bedroom altogether except to go to the bathroom.

* * *

Inevitably the day came in which Dean's world got turned upside down.

It wasn't dramatic, it wasn't on a hunt, it wasn't in the hands of a monster or saving the world. It was just in his sleep. Dean had walked into his room one morning to wake him up and he didn't move. He wouldn't move.

Then there was nothing. Then there was just Dean. There was no sweeping orchestral music to drown out the pain. It was just _quiet._ It was a horrible, aching, desperate silence that never stopped.

He didn't burn Sam's body. He had no idea how to bring him back but he found that when it came down to it he couldn't face that finality of leaving nothing left.

He couldn't stay in the bat cave. He kept seeing the ghosts of the people he cared most about. He would think of something and his brain would tell him to go find Sam. Then he would walk past Cas's room and see the violin lying on the desk. The bunker was full of empty chairs, dead men's clothes and mountains of memories.

It couldn't be home anymore.

Dean thought at first that he would simply hit the road and throw himself into hunting. He soon discovered he couldn't drive the impala, open the boot and pick out a gun without the memories rushing over him. He couldn't sit in the car for hours driving across America alone. The memories chased him like a pack of hungry dogs and the more he ran, the closer they got. So he locked the impala up and left her behind and the dogs stayed with her.

_Dean you are worthless, you are small, you are stupid and now you are lost and alone._

More than anything else in the world he wanted everything to end. More than he had wanted it ever before. He wouldn't kill himself, because he knew where he would end up and that was worse. So he spent his days drifting from town to town. People stopped asking the probing questions after a while when they knew he wouldn't give them any answers. He got a job fixing cars and he spent as much time as he could working because it was calming and methodical and his only solace.

He had never dreamed he would be the last one left, alone and sad.


	13. With wings

Sam didn't remember dying. All he knew was that he had woken up in a cold white room, with Metatron leaning over him.

_Heaven?_

His reflexes took over and he tried to jump up to back away but his legs still failed him, he was still so _weak_.

Metatron half smiled, "Well Sam it seems you didn't go through with the trials after all."

"No, but why am I not getting bet..." and it hits Sam.

_This was heaven._

_He was dead_.

"Why?"

"Ahhh that is the question isn't it? It seems the trials did some damage to your already quite frayed soul. You should be more careful with it; it has had quite a battering over the years. There is only so much it can stand up to."

Sam saw him reach his hand into his pocket.

"So what are you going to do to me?"

"Let's just say I have something in my pocket. Something... magic. Something I don't have much of a use for and I have an idea of how to keep your soul from falling apart."

Before he could move Sam found himself strapped into a chair. He wriggled restlessly, while Metatron opened a vial filled with light and he let it flow gently outwards. The light danced for a moment and then settled into his hand.

"Hold still Sam and don't worry, you'll get the life you want so badly."

He thrust his fist into Sam, Sam gasped and all he saw was a blinding white light and then black.


	14. Lost and Found

It was a morning in June a year later that Dean found Castiel. He was reading a newspaper in his coffee break, or not really reading it, more just flicking through the pages, carefully ignoring anything that looked like a possible hunt. Nothing could have been more routine, more ordinary or less supernatural. There was a picture above an article of a man sitting at a desk. It was Castiel.

He looked the same, wearing a neat grey suit, vivid blue eyes looking at the camera. Dean blinked.

_Is this real? _

He started to look through the article but he couldn't read fast enough to satiate his need to find out more. The heading was "CAPTAIN HOOKE" and the caption under the picture read; Jennifer Oliver with James Hooke the new managing director of "Oliver and Company". James Hooke? It seemed that the old lady had died and left Castiel in charge of her company.

_Cas._

The reality of the past year hit Dean and the familiar face looking at him from the page made him realise how much he didn't want to be alone anymore. How much he missed him. His mind began to race and filled with questions.

_What has he been doing? Does he remember? Why has Fate let me find him? _

_Has she finally left us alone?_

After so long hiding and feeling useless and helpless he had something he _could do_. He had someone. There was no way he was patient enough to finish his day at work so Dean simply left, he didn't notice the puzzled glances people gave him and jumped into his car and looked "Oliver and Company" up in his phone and started to drive. He turned the music up loud and he tapped the steering wheel. It was out of time with the music but it matched the restless urgency in his head.

* * *

Dean walked back inside a motel room, dropped his keys on the table and then sat down on the bed and pulled out his phone and dialled a number. It rang a couple of times before someone picked up.

"Hello,"

"It's Dean."

"Oh, hello, how are you? It's been a while."

"I found him Charlie."

"That's great!" Charlie paused, "You don't sound very happy about it? How did you find him anyway? You said that fate was going to make sure it didn't happen."

"I don't know about fate. I just saw his picture in the paper. Somehow he's managed to get himself managing some dead rich old ladies business affairs. Lots of charity stuff as well."

"Wow, he's been busy. Have you seen him?"

"I went along to the head office and I made some excuse for being there and I saw him." Dean paused for a moment and then went on, "he walked right past and he just looked right through me. He still doesn't remember Charlie."

"Maybe all you need to do is trigger some memories. Have you tried telling him anything."

"What? Go up and say 'Hi, you were an angel and we used to fight monsters together and then you lost your memory'. Yeah that will go down well."

"What will you do then, just leave him?"

"Well while I was looking around and I saw a notice on a board and it seems he was looking for a new PA so I threw together a fake CV and applied for the job."

"And? You are going to spend your time buying him coffee and checking his emails?"

"How else can I keep an eye on him?"

Charlie didn't know what other reassurance she could offer. She didn't know what else to say and she wondered why he had rung her to tell her this, she hadn't heard from him in months. When she had left him, he was grieving for Sam and she hadn't wanted to get in the way. The one thing she knew about Dean was that he _felt_ things too easily. He seemed to be waiting for her to say something but she didn't know what it was.

"I hope it works out, keep in touch Dean."

"Bye Charlie."


	15. Daily Grind

Dean did keep in contact with Charlie after that. He just needed someone to talk to, someone who understood, someone who _remembered _while he stayed with Cas in the weird limbo he had created. He got lost in the new life he had, he could feel himself clinging to it and yet he knew deep down how fragile it was. Cas didn't remember and as he never recognised Dean, even after he was working with him every day, Dean stopped waiting for it. Instead he started to get to know him as _James_ and he got used to it like all Castiel's other personality shifts. Dean settled into a routine, of buying coffee, of writing reports, of organising everything. Castiel was still essentially the same, still awkward, still ruthless, still trying desperately to do the right thing.

This time round though, Cas seemed to have worked it out, somehow he had learnt to incorporate the big and little pictures to find solutions. He made difficult decisions and he often used Dean as someone to bounce ideas off. That was strange for Dean at first, he was so used to Cas refusing to discuss things and trying to handle things on his own. He enjoyed the change, he sometimes took Dean's advice and sometimes he didn't but the best thing was he always listened.

Then something happened that made him meet up for lunch with Charlie. Dean had pie and a beer and Charlie was ate a roll. Charlie seemed cheerful as usual and Dean talked about the everyday things that happened, and the new projects Cas was working on.

"Sounds like you are enjoying yourself," Charlie smiled at him. Dean thought she looked a little too knowing but maybe he was just imagining it.

"I never thought it would be me working a 9-5 day and getting out of the life. I'm becoming boring. And I'm even getting used to calling him James."

"Welcome to the world of full time work. I'm glad it's working out."

Dean is about to reply and make fun of himself again but he had something he needed to talk about.

"It's all pretending though. Every day is just playing at normal, playing at not knowing Cas. Sometimes I still hope he will remember."

"Maybe he still will. I mean you found him didn't you?"

"If he does it will be luck or miracle. I've given up. I gave up a long time ago. "

Charlie looks at him, "but Dean you haven't let go. You stayed."

"Maybe I should. Sometimes I just want to forget too. That's what scares me most. Sometimes I forget that angels and demons and monsters are real. Sometimes I forget Sam's face. I just remember particular expressions or moments but then he just blurs."

Charlie gives him a look filled with pity, "I remember my mum a bit like that. In scenes. Silly things too. There was a day she made me a lord of the rings birthday cake. I put them on replay in my head when I am missing her."

"I can't do that. Every time I pull out a memory it changes and becomes a little bit different. Then I can't tell what was real and what I have done to it."

Charlie knew how attached Dean was to his brother but the way he talked about Sam was disconnected, like he was stating things he had already come to terms with. Yet she still felt something was still on his mind. Cas? Cas that he was holding onto so tightly and wouldn't let go. Maybe one day he would burn out but_ it_ _was not this day._

Dean changed the subject and talked about Charlie for a bit, about the last convention she went to and how she met her favourite comic book writer. Eventually (after a couple of beers) Dean brought up what it was that he had been skirting around so far. It was a good thing and yet it reminded Dean how raw and exposed Cas could make him feel. It made Dean feel like his world was being pulled away again, like he was inadequate and redundant. Dean didn't make the connection though. He didn't understand why.

"There is this girl. She is the daughter of the old lady that died. She is head over heels for him. I can see why. She is young and pretty and smart."

"What about Cas? Does he like her too?" Dean might not be able to make the connection but Charlie could see it clearly written on his face. Dean could never hide what he was feeling.

"He flirts with her. I don't know whether to think it's cute or nauseating."

"Good for him." Charlie decided to press the issue, "but why do you look so worried about it?"

"I'm not worried. I'm happy for him. He is doing good. He makes money and he helps people, a lot of people, more than we ever did hunting. He deserves to settle down."

"You deserve it too Dean."

"I know I shouldn't feel like this. If he knew he probably wouldn't even want to remember. Yet when he looks at her, it is like he is trying to find something, something he might find with her. Then I just want to tell him but I can't. Sometimes it is so hard Charlie to watch him be happy."

Charlie has never seen someone so desperate for someone who didn't seem to realise it. She had no idea how to tell him though. She let him keep talking.

"I'm just sick of losing people. Who has done more for me? He put everything on the line so many times. He never got things right, he never made the right decisions, he struggles with basic common sense. Yet he came when I asked as long as he had't been captured and tortured. Or if he was hiding from me. I don't want him to leave." Dean sounded so _conflicted _ as he moved from agitated to gently mocking to quietly sincere.

This was as close as she thought she would get to Dean actually admitting it out load. How could she tell him that it was that he wanted Cas for himself? She wished she could wave a magic wand and make everything better because as far as she knew Dean was the hero and he deserved a happy ending.

"Don't let him go then," she said and then she changed the subject and asked him to come and meet her knew partner, a girl that she had met at the most recent LARP event.


	16. Broken

Castiel should have known it wouldn't work out. He was incomplete. He realised that it wasn't just his memory that was gone. It was like something deep down knew he belonged to someone and because of that he couldn't feel for anyone.

Sarah was so warm and enthusiastic and so very _alive_. She made him smile. He liked how she believed in things, that she wanted the world to be better and she while she taught her students science, she also taught them to think for themselves. She also made a good companion, as even though he had forgotten so much, he knew what seemed like everything and she understood. They had heated discussions about some of the more controversial ideas in science.

One evening she had come into the office on a Friday night dressed in a beautiful red gown, determined to get him to come out.

"Come on James, it's New Years Eve! You are going to take me out to dinner."

"I'm busy, I can't come. And there is supposed to be a big storm tonight."

"Yes you can, you can finish that later. It's beautiful outside, it's snowing and I asked Dean and he said he can finish it before he leaves. You need a break."

He smiled at her.

"Alright then." He didn't know what he would have done without Dean. Dean who had walked into his life when he had no idea what he was doing, trying to live up to the expectations his benefactor had put on him. Dean organised him and kept him grounded and always knew what was important. Dean was the one who had pointed it out in the first place.

Sarah had just left after coming to visit him after the school term finished.

"She has a huge crush on you, you know that right?"

"No. I didn't."

"Oh come on she can't take her eyes off you. And you smile back."

So that explained to him why she kept finding excuses to visit the main office even though she worked states away.

_What would he do without Dean to show him what was in front of his nose?_

* * *

Dinner was lovely. The food was delicious and conversation flowed quickly between them. James let himself relax and enjoy himself. Sarah was currently working in one of the schools that her mother's company had set up disadvantaged children and she told him about how the students were going, how she had managed to run an experiment without any of them setting fire to the classroom or breaking the glassware.

Then he caught a glimpse of the chef talking to some customers at a distant table. His British accent drifted over to their table. For a moment Castiel felt like he recognised him, but it quickly passed and he looked as much a stranger as anyone else. He checked the name on the menu that was listed as the chef. Crowley. It didn't ring any bells.

_There I go making things up I am so desperate to remember._

It left him feeling disconcerted though.

Sarah was watching him, her wide brown eyes full of affection. He didn't know what he had done to make her so attached.

"You know I like you very much don't you James?"

"Yes I do."

"You are the most gorgeous man I have ever met. You are so wonderful humouring me like this all the time."

"What makes you think I am just humouring you?" He had wondered for a while, why not try? She was beautiful and she made him happy and maybe she was the only way to move on from whatever his memories pulled him back towards.

"Really James? You know I think I fell for you the day mother picked you up out of the rain. I think I inherited her love for stray things. I have never met anyone like you." She looked so ready just dive in and give him more than he would have dreamed of.

"We could give it a go. I should warn you though I'm a bit broken."

"Shh, so what you can't remember, we will just have to create some new memories."

He felt accepted and less empty and all his misgivings were chased away.

* * *

When they left, the snow was starting to fall much heavier and the wind had come up. James wrapped his coat around her as they waited for a taxi to pull up. She turned to face him and he looked down at her and kissed her gently, just tentatively. She smiled and lifted her arms so they were around his neck and kissed him back.

Then the taxi pulled up and the driver yelled at them to hurry up because soon it wouldn't be safe to drive.

They pulled apart and James suggested "Shall we just go back to my place then, it's much closer."

"Sounds good to me, anywhere out of this cold."

So they drove back to his place and hurried inside.

"Brr, that was cold," said Sarah and she walked in, looking around his flat.

"I'll go and turn the heating on." James went and turned some lights on in the next room and the hum of the reverse cycle started to move through the flat.

Sarah walked toward the window and looked out at the snow.

"I think it's getting worse."

"Would you like a drink of something hot?"

"Coffee would be lovely."

James walked to the kitchen and put the kettle on.

Sarah sat down and noticed the violin sitting on a stand.

"I didn't realise you played violin."

James came out to hear what she was saying.

"Yes, it is one of the things I just know how to do. Without remembering why."

"Can you play something for me?"

"If you'd like."

He walked over and picked it up and started to play the theme from "Schindler's list".

Sarah watched as she listened and she smiled at first, because it was beautiful and sad and he moved so gracefully and played so effortlessly. As she watched though she saw him get more and more lost inside the music until he was far, far away. His expression changed to one she hadn't seen, he looked so soft and lost and yet he seemed to grow in the room. She got the impression he was playing for someone else, even if he didn't realise it. Once she had felt it, she couldn't shake it. She realised now what a foolish daydream this all was.

Tears welled up her eyes. When he finished he looked over at her and noticed for the first time.

"Sarah, what is the matter."

"I should never have asked you."

"What do you mean?" He sat down next to her and went to put an arm around her.

"It's not fair on you to ask this of you. I shouldn't have pushed my daydreams onto you. I saw your face just then James and you might not remember who, but you are playing that for someone, someone _somewhere_."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault. You are so kind and nice but I cannot give you what you are looking for. I shouldn't ask you to try and be what I want."

Castiel dropped his eyes, and he could feel his enthusiasm slipping away as she withdrew hers.

"For a moment I believed it so thank you for that."

She sniffed and wiped her eyes. She looked out the window.

"I think the storm is letting up a little, I should go."

Sarah left. She kissed him gently on the forehead as she went and whispered in his ear.

"You're an angel."

Castiel didn't say anything as she went. Then he was alone and as lost and broken as ever.

He should have known.


	17. Warm Cookies

Sam woke to the smell of freshly baked cookies. Amelia was in the kitchen and sunlight flooded the room. He stood up to go and say hello as his dog ran in and jumped up on him.

"Come on," she said, "Hurry up and help me pack the car. We need to make the most of this beautiful weather for our picnic."

Sam smiled. He shook his head, there was something he was sure he was supposed to remember but whatever it was seemed less important as moments went by.

The days drifted past. There were picnics and blue skies. They had family BBQ's and went for long walks on the beach. Seasons drifted by, Sam wasn't sure if they were supposed to come and go that quickly but the falling leaves of autumn were followed by nights curling up by a fire with hot soup. There were children and they were small and cried a lot at first and then they were learning to walk and play and go to school. He was loved and he loved and he felt like he was home. He didn't notice how time slipped, skipped or slowed. He didn't notice what was missing. He didn't notice there was no Dean, no monsters, no hunting.

Unitl one day when he felt a tug.

It was like an ache pulling him towards something.

That was when he started to remember.

_Dean_?

He asked Amelia about the name but she didn't know it. He asked about his family.

"You don't have any family left Sam, they all died. You don't talk about them much."

"I don't remember."

_Maybe I forgot them all on purpose?_

The ache didn't go away and it got worse and more slipped through. Dean was important. Dean was his brother. They hunted monsters together.

Their children are in high school before he managed to remember how he met Amelia and it wasn't until his eldest son got married that the rest flooded back.

_He was in heaven. Now it all makes sense._

Now that he knew it, it started to feel empty and superficial. Once he knew it wasn't real he noticed it wasn't right. He wanted to hang onto it, he didn't want to leave, but the ache continually made him feel like he wasn't supposed to be there. The people began to disappear until it was just him and Amelia again. Him and Amelia on that picnic, and it never ended and it never changed.

Eventually one day the picnic disappeared and he was in a forest. A quiet dark forest and the trees looked the same in every direction.

He wandered. The scenery changed without warning over and over again. It felt like it was he himself that was causing it to happen but he had no idea how. He realised he was moving through people's personal corners. Some are mundane and ordinary. Others are completely fantastical.

Some were lost in previous centuries with horses and carriages or castles. Others are not even based in reality like a child who had a family of dragons. There were peaceful islands and loud parties. One man was playing a chess game in candlelight. The people didn't seem to notice Sam. He was invisible.

One of the heavens was a movie theatre with a young teenage couple in it. Sam thought about popcorn and a box appeared in his hand.

Eventually he found himself on a lawn and he looked down and saw the burnt silhouettes of wings.

_Angels. Cas._

The ache pulled harder now and it felt like a direction.

_Home, _it whispered, _Dean._

Sam followed it and the longer he followed it the more he realised that it didn't quite feel familiar. It was affection and longing and it wanted to go home but it wasn't _his _affection and longing. That was then it clicked into place for Sam.

_I have been so stupid._

He remembered Dean telling him how he took Castiel's grace and he remembered Metatron and the bright light. He understood why he could wander around freely, why he could make things appear and why he felt like he needed to go home.

_Does this make me an angel?_

So he kept following it and like a game of hot and cold he finds his way. Sam's own longing got stronger too. He is sick of all the castles in the sky, he is sick of how like a fantasy it was, he wanted reality back. He wanted to go home too.

He shut his eyes and thought as hard as he could.

_There is no place like home, there is no place like home, there is no place like home..._


	18. Road Trip

Dean had tried to help Cas and Sarah. He had ended up tricking himself that it would be fine and he was over-reacting. It hadn't worked though. She had gone back home and James had looked sadder than usual but he hadn't said anything.

It shouldn't have made Dean happy but it did.

So Dean decided that enough was enough and he was going to try and get Cas to remember. Remember anything.

It started when they needed to go on a trip to halfway across the country. James was going to open a new hospital. James wanted them to fly but Dean wasn't getting on a plane. Not ever.

James had laughed at him at first.

"I need you there too though. How are you going to get there?"

"I'll drive."

"That will take days!"

"You could come too."

"I don't have time."

"You will just have to do without me for a bit."

"All right. A road trip."

So Dean went back to the bunker and got the impala out of storage. She was dusty and there were spider webs on the side mirrors. Yet underneath she was just the same as the last time he had driven her. Nothing had changed.

He picked up James from his flat.

"What a nice car. I don't think I've seen you in it before?"

"I haven't used her in years but she is fantastic for road trips."

James sat in the front passenger seat. Perched.

_Just like the old days._

He was completely oblivious though, not a flicker.

Dean put on an old ACDC tape. James seemed to enjoy it but didn't make any comment.

Still nothing.

* * *

They do what they need to do while they are there. Cas smiled and shook hands. Dean talked to a few kids. Kids always liked Dean. Cas asked him to write something down and he pulled out a notebook from his pocket.

"You dropped this." He picked something up from the ground and held it out to Dean. It was a white angel feather.

Dean turned to look. There was only a blank expression on Castiel's face. He didn't recognise it.

* * *

Later on the way home they sat in a motel room. Cas was watching TV and The Lord of the Rings is on. Dean sits down next to him watches too.

"Have you seen this before?" he asks.

"I think so."

_Of course, who hasn't. _

Cas laughs in the same spots as he did the time they watched it in the bunker. He gets frustrated at the same characters, notices the same things.

They go to bed.

Dean woke up first in the morning and he went to the bathroom, thinking that the noise would wake Cas up. When he gets back though, Cas was still asleep, curled up with a peaceful expression on his face. Dean just watched for a moment. He didn't want to wake him up.

_Is this why he used to do it?_

As if Cas can feel him watching he stirs and for a moment he looked slightly disorientated and then he recognised Dean.

"Hello Dean."

Dean pulled himself away and pretended that he wasn't watching.

* * *

They are driving back when Cas asked if he could tell him something strange.

"Go for it. Trust me I'll have heard weirder."

"I have been having a recurring dream. It started with me standing surrounded by dead bodies, just slumped around me. I thought at first it was a war or it was just a projection of my worries about people and doing the right thing and not letting people down."

"Doesn't sound too weird."

"Then I started to feel like for some reason that I was the one who had killed them. There was someone else there though. So I thought that maybe she was making me kill them."

"She?" Dean questions, a flicker of hope fluttered inside of Dean.

_Naomi?_

"Last night it changed. It become much more... detailed. This time I recognised the bodies. They were all the same. They were all you."

Cas turned to look at Dean, with a puzzled open expression on his face, his blue eyes looking into Deans as if he looked hard enough he would find the answer inside somewhere.

"I had this silver sword, and I could do nothing about it. And she says to me 'you are finally ready.'"

Dean held his gaze. He was frozen. Frozen because Cas seemed to remember. Then he realised what Cas was actually saying. Dean wondered if it was true, how much was real and how much was nightmare? Did Naomi make him kill Dean over and over somehow or was the whole thing just an expression of Castiel's guilt.

He had no idea what to say. So he did what had always served him well and deflected.

"That's very strange. I hope you're not planning on killing me anytime soon?"

"No of course not."

The moment of intensity passed and for most of the journey they fell into silence while thoughts raced around Dean's head.

_Maybe he will remember._


	19. Rooftop

Castiel didn't show any more signs of remembering anything else.

One Dean walked out onto the roof of their offices to find James. He needed him to okay some documents before he left. He had always wondered where James disappeared to sometimes and decided to try the roof and if he couldn't find him he would give up until tomorrow. It was a clear night and he found James playing his violin. The full moon was highlighting his hair and shining on the strings on his bow. He was lost in the music and Dean almost kidded himself it was Castiel again.

"So this is where you have been hiding. Fiddler on the Roof?"

He stopped playing and became James again. So very normal.

"Yes, you're right. I don't remember learning though. It just helps me think. The notes, they all add up, it is very mathematical."

"It sounds good. I just came up to give you these things but it can wait until tomorrow."

Cas leaned back against a wall. "Dean there was something I was going to ask you."

"Shoot."

"Do you enjoy working for me?

"Of course James, do you think I would hang around all day if I didn't. Plenty of money elsewhere."

"You know I had that meeting today with Peterson? Well he was suggesting I get into politics and I was thinking I might take him up on the offer. If I am successful it might mean I actually have the power to make a difference."

"That's great. You can inject some sanity into an insane world. I suppose it will mean more work for me? You want to give me a pay rise?"

Cas smiled. "I'll need someone here to run things. I know we don't always agree, or get along but you do much more than just my paperwork. So do you think you could help run things here. A least the charity side of things. I just trust your judgement better than anyone else."

Dean couldn't look him in the eye.

"Of course I'll do it."

_He just wished it was Cas saying it._

"Good, I am relieved. I thought you might not want the extra work."

"More interesting than photocopying all day."

They were stood silently next to each other for a few moments. Both lost in thought until Castiel broke the silence.

"I remember I you telling me once that you lost someone?"

"Yes my brother, and my... a close friend."

"You remember them don't you?" Dean nodded. "Sometimes I feel like I should, I should have someone I remember. There is nothing though and I can't live properly because of small weak hope I might see them again. I know it's silly. I just feel like there is something I am missing. I am successful and rich and I help people, I make a lot of people happy which should make me content. Even Sarah saw through it. I couldn't make her happy."

Dean looked at his empty sad blue eyes and he knew he still hung onto the tiny hope that he might see a flicker of recognition there one day.

_He couldn't let go._


	20. Angels

James won his way into the world of politics. It had left Dean with a lot of work to do organising things as well as running half the company. It had also meant he had seen a lot less of Cas. The campaign was over now and Dean knew that meant the hard work was just beginning. They had a large party for the supporters and the volunteers. Dean slipped away after the speeches and dinner hoping to get away without anyone noticing. He was _tired. _But James saw him go and followed him.

"Where are you off to? Party has just started."

"I'm just tired, I'm still not used to all this socialising and society dinners. If I have to smile at one more person I might knock them out. Most of those political people are complete dicks anyway. You are going to have to be careful, don't let those people corrupt you."

"I haven't thanked you anywhere near enough for all your hard work. I couldn't have done it without you."

Dean just sits, he has pulled the angel feather that he carries around for luck in his pocket and twirls it between his fingers.

"Do you believe in angels James?"

James thinks for a moment and then says, "certainly not the sitting on the shoulder kind. They are just stories."

"Well I did once. In one in particular anyway. Maybe I still do."

"I'm sorry." James didn't know whether Dean was being figurative or not. "You look tired, you are welcome to go home if you like."

Dean sighed. "Maybe I am. I think I might need a break. I might hit the road again, go back to what I was doing before. Get away from the stress and the pressure for a bit." Dean wanted him to say "stay" so much and yet he knew he was setting himself up for disappointment again.

"That's fine. I'll find someone to take over while you're gone." James couldn't understand why Dean leaving made him feel sad and torn. He tried to shake the feeling off.

"You'll come back won't you? I need you here Dean."

_I need you._

It hurt Dean so much to hear that because it was James not Cas who had said it. In all the time since he had lost his memory he had never wanted Castiel to remember more.

Castiel pulled the key out of his pocket and held it in front of him.

"I might not believe in angels but I do have this. This could be the key to something ordinary like a box or a shed but why would I feel like it's so important? I don't know why, but I feel like somewhere, someone wanted me."

"Do you ever wonder if you would even recognise them if you saw them again? You could walk right past and never know it."

"Yes, I do. Sometimes I wish this key would unlock my memories and then I think everything would make sense somehow."

Dean just nodded in agreement. He was too drained for this conversation. It was too close to the truth, he was too close to just saying _Cas_.

"I'm sorry, you said you were tired, I'll let you go home. I'll talk to you tomorrow."


	21. Doorway

_There is no place like home, there is no place like home, there is no place like home..._

Sam opened his eyes and in front of him was a door. It was non-descript; grey and smooth and the handle had no lock. The ache had stopped.

_This is it._

He opened the door.

It is much less dramatic than he expected. On the other side there is grass and a tree. No people though.

It seemed safe so Sam walked through and closed the door behind him. There was no rocky trans-dimensional jump and once he was through he turned and looked behind him and the door was gone. What he did see though was flattened grass and a gravestone. The gravestone just had the words "Sam Winchester" written on it.

He was on earth again.

He looked down and saw his own body, and his brain ran its checks and decided he was mostly fine.

Then it hit him. It was the feeling of contained power, like something inside him was about to burst. It was like being bigger on the inside. Much, much bigger. He could also feel the time pour over him, the world turn beneath his feet and the things around him felt small and insignificant. The strangest thing he could feel was the wings behind him, and yet he wasn't able to see or touch them. He wondered how on earth he was supposed to use them. He needed to find his way home and to find Dean.

_Maybe it will work like it did in heaven?_

So he tried to think himself standing outside the bunker and almost before he could finish the thought he was there. He could feel the drain of power, but it was quickly filling again.

_So that was what flying was like for an angel. _

He tried again and this time he moved to inside the batcave.

It was empty. He looked around and everything looked like he remembered it. His bedwas not even made, his clothes were still in his cupboard. The fridge hadn't even been emptied.

_Where is Dean?_

He wondered how he could use his new angelic powers to find Dean or Cas. Dean still had the enochian symbols on his ribs as far as he knew but maybe he could find Castiel. Maybe he could take his grace and get his memory back.

_I wonder if Dean already found a way to fix it?_

_I must find Cas._

So Sam shut his eyes and he could hear faintly voices saying hushed prayers and he found he could search his way through them.

_Where are you Cas?_


	22. Gate Crashers

Dean is about to leave when they heard screams from the main dinner room.

"What was that?" said James.

They both hurried back inside, the adrenalin hitting Dean for the first time in a long time. They look in and see people are screaming and hiding behind tables. Dean looked around for the reason and he saw black smoke pour into one of the guests. There is a person standing with their back to the door and people are looking scared in their direction.

Dean whipped out his silver gun, he still kept it on him loaded and ready with salt bullets. James just looked at him in wonder.

"Demons," he whispered, more to himself than anything else.

He backed James out again and hoped they hadn't been noticed.

"James, just trust me, we need to get salt, anything iron you can find and some spray paint. We just might be able to lure them out..."

Dean is cut off from a voice inside.

"Dean Winchester is that you? Is Castiel with you, please come and say hello."

_Shit._ _Abaddon._

"What is going on?" James asked.

Dean didn't get a chance to answer because two demons had appeared blocking their exit. Dean shot one of them and then began chanting an exorcism but it was too late. They were both knocked down and one of the demons took Dean's gun. They were caught.

They were both dragged in front of Abaddon who had let the rest of the crowd leave.

"What am I going to do to you both? I have been looking for you for a long time. Someone must be looking after you because it wouldn't usually take that long."

She walked over to Dean "I can't say I appreciated being cut up into pieces." She tilted her head and threw him onto a table and he crashed across it and onto the ground.

Then she turned her attention to Castiel.

"So you're the little angel who has been causing so much trouble. I've heard so much about you. You are the spanner in everyone's works."

James looked terrified as she curled her fingers around and he felt his airway being cut off and he was choking and gasping while she wasn't even touching him.

"You are a poor excuse for an angel."

Dean had recovered to see Abaddon _killing _Castiel.

_No._

He had absolutely nothing that he could use against her. No weapons. No backup plan.

So Dean moved to put himself between the demon and Cas. It worked, in a way, as she lost interest in Cas and turned on Dean.

"Can't wait your turn? I'm going to tear you limb from limb and cut you into pieces."

"Screw you."

She threw Dean to the floor so he was on his knees at her feet. She lifted his head and he coughed, blood coming out of his mouth.

James was gasping to get his breath back and he watched as Abaddon took one of Dean's hands and tore a finger off. Dean screamed.

_Castiel. Why did that seem familiar?_

Images, like still frames flashed into his head. They were disconnected and it was like watching a movie, like watching memories without remembering them. There was Dean at _his _feet bloody and bruised. Dean's hand on his shoulder, Dean smiling, Dean fighting monsters, Dean yelling at him, arguing with him, teasing him and then Dean in hell waiting to be saved.

Abaddon was twisting his arm now, and Cas heard the bone snap and crunch between her fingers. Dean screamed again.

"Dean," said Cas.

Dean tried to turn his head when he heard him.

_That's Cas._

Abaddon threw a look across at Cas but she didn't realise what had happened.

"You're too easily distracted," she whined at Dean and held his head by his hair and bashed it on the floor. Then she began snapping the bones in his hand, one by one, and Dean passed out.

"Too much," she laughed.

* * *

Sam appeared, out of no where, not expecting to see his brother on the floor with Abaddon standing over him. Sam's anger was always close to the surface and with Castiel's grace burning inside him, his eyes flash and his wings flare. Their shadows spread across the room and the air crackled.

"Get away from him!" Sam ordered.

"You can't kill me."

Sam ignored her and walked closer, hand outstretched and she couldn't move. Her face showed the effort she was using to fight it but she couldn't free herself. Sam reached his hand to her face and white light engulfed her. She screamed, but she didn't disappear and the scream turned into a laugh. She glanced across at Cas.

"Oh dear pretty angel..."

Then she was cut off as Sam thrust an angel blade into her chest. She wailed this time, withered and then burst into flames her vessel turning into ash and dust.

When Sam had appeared Castiel was hit with a comforting sense of familiarity and he realised _that it was his grace!._ Then the images that a moment ago he had watched like a spectator became a part of him again and he knew who he was.

_Castiel._

"Sam?" he said with wonder in his eyes.

Sam walked over to his brother and with a quiet gesture Dean was awake and breathing normally again. Dean looked up, expecting to see a powered up Castiel like he had seen many times before. Except this time it was Sam.

"Sammy? Is that really you?" Dean couldn't believe it.

_It must be a trick, a monster._

"It's me Dean. Or mostly me."

"He has my grace Dean." Castiel looked almost as overwhelmed as Dean.

"Looks like I came just in time, can't leave you two alone for five minutes can I?"

Dean just looked shocked. It was too much all at once. His mistrust didn't stand a chance against his overwhelming desire for it all to be true.

Sam knelt down, leant over and wrapped his arms around his brother. Dean was shaking, tears falling down his face because he wasn't alone anymore.

He had his family back.


	23. Good things do Happen

It was Sam this time that took them back the quick way to the bunker. Everything was the same in the batcave, while the world had changed again. They were back.

That night they sat and talked.

Castiel was simply processing, trying to adjust and realise what had happened over the last few years.

Dean had everyone he needed back, all at once and he tore his eyes from Sam to Cas and back again.

Sam was still adjusting to the feeling of his powers and he was trying to work out what had happened between Dean and Cas while he wasn't there.

Sam explained first. He told them how Metatron had fixed his soul using Castiel's grace. Told them how he had wandered through heaven and found his way out.

"Cas, you can have it back. I have no idea how though."

"It might be possible but I'm fairly sure your soul would fall apart without it. You are welcome to keep it, I can't think of a better use for it. Maybe you can be a better angel than I ever was."

"So you're an angel now Sammy?" Dean is still taking it in. Now that he had him back, he realised how huge the hole was that he had left. There were so many things he wanted to say to Sam, but it was all too complicated.

"Yes, I suppose so."

"What does it feel like?"

"Strange, like being really big and powerful but small at the same time. I didn't even realise until I got out of heaven."

Sam turned to Cas, "so you remembered?"

"Only partly, when she was hurting Dean. I only remembered properly when you came Sam."

"So what happened to you both all this time?"

Castiel looked at Dean, as if he was waiting to see if Dean wanted to explain. Dean didn't know what to say, didn't know how to start, didn't know how to say it with Cas sitting there opposite him, watching with lamp-like eyes.

_Knowing._

"It's a long story," said Cas in his deep level voice, "I'm happy to tell my bit."

Dean's heart sang at the sound; James may have used the same vocal chords but it was never the _same._

"We have time," smiled Sam, "and I probably don't need to sleep."

"Maybe, Sammy," said Dean, "only because for now it has a happy ending." Dean was a little recovered, well enough to joke anyway, so he began;

"Once upon a time in a kingdom far, far away..."

"Come on Dean."

It was Cas though that finished the sentence "... there was a lost angel. He had lost his grace, lost his memory and lost his friends..."


	24. Unlocked

Even after everything had been explained and stories exchanged Dean still felt awkward around Cas. They had spent years together on such a strange footing and now Cas knew and Dean waited to see what Cas would do now that he remembered. It was a day later that they got a chance to talk alone.

"I have to thank you Dean. You put up with me and looked after me for such a long time."

"That's ok."

"I've been thinking. I think that maybe I finally understand the free will I have been fighting for so long. Freedom to learn and decide based on consequences instead of a world based on absolutes and punishment and judgement. Perhaps it is harder to make decisions that way, but it should be. So I thank you for that too."

"Cas, I don't remember doing any of that."

"You have always reminded me how people can be better. Of all the creatures in the world, humans are the ones that went 'I can exceed my instincts, I want to be good, and I want to live in a better world'. No matter how many times you get it wrong you keep trying and most of all you forgive when people don't meet your expectations."

"You're human too now, not so different to the rest of us."

"Yes, I suppose I am. I've made more than a few mistakes."

"It wasn't just me that made you question things Cas, you do that by yourself. It's one of the reasons why I..." Dean stopped himself before he said something he thought of as _silly_.

"There is something else I understand now. Something I need to say because it is my turn to say it."

Castiel reached into his pocket and held out the key. Dean's throat tightened.

"The reason I always come back is because this is where I am supposed to be. This is where I am happy and safe. My home is wherever you are."

Castiel's eyes never left Dean's.

"Because I need you too. I can't lose you Dean."

Castiel reached out to hold the front of Deans jacket and he pulled Dean towards him. Cas looked up, smiled mischievously and then kissed him. Kissed him with all the love, affection and desperation he felt but couldn't say out loud. That neither of them could say out loud. Dean was taken completely off guard but he didn't try and push away. He closed his eyes and relaxed let Cas come home.

He had never felt so loved and fulfilled in his life.


	25. Epilogue

"Hehehehe, you thought you were so amazing Lachesis."

"It's not like you did any better."

"I think you actually made them closer together. I thought you were supposed to split them up?"

"Maybe that was the point. They were going around in circles. Haven't you noticed it doesn't matter how far you pull them apart they always find each other again."

"You thought you could fix it by making it worse? You _arranged_ for them to find eachother again?"

"You're just jealous because you can't get any of them to stay dead. You know you should really give that up you know. Destiel is destiny."


End file.
